In Honor of the Forthcoming Barclays Center Card, We Pay Tribute To Brooklyn’s Rich Boxing Heritage

Published

9 years ago

January 6, 2016

BARCLAYS-SEATING 70ece

WBC heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder opposes Artur Szpilka in the main event of the January 16 boxing show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. In the main supporting bout, Charles Martin meets Vyachelov Glazkov for the IBF heavyweight belt vacated by Tyson Fury.

The 19,000-seat Barclays Center, Brooklyn’s instant monument, opened in September of 2012. It has housed 15 boxing shows, but the Jan. 16 event will be the first in which heavyweights get top billing. As co-promoter Lou DiBella notes, 115 years have elapsed since the last heavyweight title fight in Brooklyn.

That’s an awfully long time considering Brooklyn’s rich boxing heritage.

During the late nineteenth century when boxing was transitioning from the bare-knuckle to the gloved era, few fighters were as lionized as Jack Dempsey (the original Jack Dempsey) and Jack McAuliffe. Dempsey was active from 1883 to 1895. In his prime he was considered peerless, hence his nickname “Nonpareil.” McAuliffe, dubbed the Napoleon of the Prize Ring, competed from 1885 to 1897. He retired undefeated.

Born 39 months apart in Ireland, Dempsey and McAuliffe were young children when they settled with their parents in Brooklyn. Lore has it that for a time they were co-workers in a Williamsburg barrel manufacturing plant.

Nonpareil Jack Dempsey had his last fight at Coney Island. For a time, the seaside community at the southern tip of Brooklyn rivaled New Orleans and San Francisco as the leading destination for prizefights of international importance.

Coney Island hadn’t yet morphed into a family amusement center. Home to three important racetracks, Coney Island after dark mirrored New York City’s infamous Bowery, a place identified with low-brow entertainment. It was a natural locale for prizefighting, a sport widely condemned as immoral.

The highlights of the Coney Island epoch were the three fights involving James J. Jeffries. On June 9, 1899, Jeffries wrested the heavyweight crown from the head of Bob Fitzsimmons with an 11^th round stoppage. Later that year he repelled the challenge of Sailor Tom Sharkey. On May 11, 1900, he conquered James J. Corbett, stopping the former champion in the 23^rd round.

The Jeffries-Sharkey sockfest was a doozy. For many years this bout, a 25-round affair, was considered the most brutal heavyweight title fight. There were no judges in those days. If a fight went the distance, the referee merely raised the hand of the fighter that he thought had the best of it. There was no protest when referee George Siler raised the hand of Jeffries, but the stout-hearted Sharkey cemented his reputation as one rough customer.

Boxing was resurrected in Coney Island during the 1920s. One of the more noteworthy cards staged at Coney Island Stadium was held on May 25, 1926. It featured Ruby Goldstein, an 18-year-old knockout artist from Manhattan’s Lower East Side (and later a prominent referee). Goldstein, who had acquired an avid following, was pitted against Ace Hudkins, the Nebraska Wildcat.

Hudkins wasn’t much older than Goldstein, but he was considerably more seasoned. He would saddle young Ruby with his first defeat, knocking him out in the fourth round.

Rising featherweight contender Tony Canzoneri also appeared on that card. Born in Slidell, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, Canzoneri had most of his early pro fights in Brooklyn and adopted the borough as his home. He went on to win the New York version of the world featherweight title and the world lightweight title.

The career of Canzoneri, a future Hall of Famer, provides a window into a bygone era, an era when Brooklyn was awash in neighborhood fight clubs and the best boxers, with few exceptions, had dozens of undercard fights on their ledgers before they succeeded in landing a main event.

Canzoneri had his first pro fight in July of 1925. Over the next 25 months, he fought 48 times. Twenty-four of those fights were in Brooklyn; seven in the neighboring borough of Queens.

In Brooklyn, Canzoneri fought at Ridgewood Grove (a facility that straddled the Brooklyn-Queens border), the Broadway Arena, the Fort Hamilton Arena, Coney Island Stadium, Canarsie Stadium, and Ebbets Field.

Boxing at Ebbets Field never reached the heights that it did in the big baseball parks across the river in the Bronx, but the hallowed home of the Dodgers had a few moments in the sun. Former middleweight champion Mickey Walker, outweighed by almost 30 pounds, battled Jack Sharkey to a 15-round draw on July 22, 1931. Later that year, a crowd estimated at 30,000 (an impressive turnout considering the economic climate) watched Sharkey outpoint Primo Carnera in a bout billed for the American heavyweight title.

Of the aforementioned boxing arenas, the Broadway Arena, in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, and Ridgewood Grove were the busiest. The Broadway, which could trace its lineage as a home for boxing to 1914, was the top fight club in the metropolitan area during the 1930s and 1940s. It likely hosted more than a thousand shows before it shut down in 1951. Researchers have documented 1,229 boxing shows at Ridgewood Grove from 1920 to 1954.

These clubs, run on shoestring budgets, were nurseries for fighters on the way up and ATM machines, of a sort, for journeymen and fighters on the way down. Few fighters seized the imagination of the public on the way up like Rocky Graziano. His career, like so many boxers, paralleled that of Tony Canzoneri, albeit the Brooklyn phase of Graziano’s career was shorter. He debuted at the Broadway Arena, the first of his 14 fights in Brooklyn.

The Eastern Parkway Arena was a late addition to the Brooklyn boxing scene. The converted roller rink at 1435 Eastern Parkway hosted a weekly Monday Night show that ran on the Dumont network from May 19, 1952 to May 16, 1955.

Carl “Bobo” Olson, from Honolulu by way of San Francisco, and Gene Fullmer, from West Jordan, Utah, had their first New York exposures at Eastern Parkway. Matchmaker Teddy Brenner, who served in the same capacity at Madison Square Garden, was testing them to see if they were worthy of fighting on a larger stage. Indeed they were, especially Fullmer, who engaged Sugar Ray Robinson in a robust four-fight series.

The most famous alumnus of this venue was Floyd Patterson. Eleven of his first 16 pro fights were at Eastern Parkway Arena. In 1956, the Brooklyn-based Patterson became the youngest man to win the heavyweight title, a distinction he held for 30 years.

The Eastern Parkway Arena was in the Brownsville section, a fertile pod of fistic talent. During the first half of the 20^th century, Brownsville boxers were disproportionately Jewish. As the neighborhood changed, so also did the pigmentation of her boxers. Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad did more than uphold Brownsville’s boxing legacy; they took it to a new level.

Mike Tyson never fought in Brooklyn; Riddick Bowe only once after turning pro, an early bout at Gleason’s Gym that was little more than a public workout. Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, born Edward Gregory, never fought in Brooklyn either but had several engagements at Sunnyside Garden in Queens, a place that was a nursery for his former amateur rival, Brooklyn’s Vito Antuofermo. When Sunnyside Garden closed in 1977, the obit eulogized the cozy arena as the last of New York’s neighborhood fight clubs.

Philadelphia’s Danny Garcia met Tijuana’s Erik Morales in the main go of the inaugural boxing card at Barclays Center. The undercard was spiced with local fighters: Paulie Malignaggi, Daniel Jacobs, Luis Collazo, Peter Quillin, and Dmitriy Salita. In the wings, figuratively if not literally, were Tyson, Bowe, Mustafa Muhammad, Antuofermo, Shannon Briggs, Zab Judah, Mark Breland, Juan LaPorte, and Junior Jones.

They say that boxing is dead, a refrain that was heard even in the best of times. Then it blooms anew where it was previously dormant. Boxing in Brooklyn was ripe for a renaissance. Barclays Center arrived at a propitious time.

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Arne K. Lang

Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?

Published

19 hours ago

December 20, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.

The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.

Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.

The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.

That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.

The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)

Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)

Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.

Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).

Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.

The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.

Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.

Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.

We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”

The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.

Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.

Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.

Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.

There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.

It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.

Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.

At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

3 days ago

December 18, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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“I get ‘Bam’ vibes when I watch this kid,” said ESPN ringside commentator Tim Bradley during the opening round of Steven Navarro’s most recent match. Bradley was referencing WBC super flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, a precociously brilliant technician whose name now appears on most pound-for-pound lists.

There are some common threads between Steven Navarro, the latest fighter to adopt the nickname “Kid Dynamite,” and Bam Rodriguez. Both are southpaws currently competing in the junior bantamweight division. But, of course, Bradley was alluding to something more when he made the comparison. And Navarro’s showing bore witness that Bradley was on to something.

It was the fifth pro fight for Navarro who was matched against a Puerto Rican with a 7-1 ledger. He ended the contest in the second frame, scoring three knockdowns, each the result of a different combination of punches, forcing the referee to stop it. It was the fourth win inside the distance for the 20-year-old phenom.

Isaias Estevan “Steven” Navarro turned pro after coming up short in last December’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana. The #1 seed in the 57 kg (featherweight) division, he was upset in the finals, losing a controversial split decision. Heading in, Navarro had won 13 national tournaments beginning at age 12.

A graduate of LA’s historic Fairfax High School, Steven made his pro debut this past April on a Matchroom Promotions card at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and then inked a long-term deal with Top Rank. He comes from a boxing family. His father Refugio had 10 pro fights and three of Refugio’s cousins were boxers, most notably Jose Navarro who represented the USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a four-time world title challenger as a super flyweight. Jose was managed by Oscar De La Hoya for much of his pro career.

Nowadays, the line between a prospect and a rising contender has been blurred. Three years ago, in an effort to make matters less muddled, we operationally defined a prospect thusly: “A boxer with no more than a dozen fights, none yet of the 10-round variety.” To our way of thinking, a prospect by nature is still in the preliminary-bout phase of his career.

We may loosen these parameters in the future. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of talented female boxers who, like their Japanese male counterparts in the smallest weight classes, are often pushed into title fights when, from a historical perspective, they are just getting started.

But for the time being, we will adhere to our operational definition. And within the window that we have created, Steven Navarro stood out. In his first year as a pro, “Kid Dynamite” left us yearning to see more of him.

Honorable mention: Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior (5-0, 5 KOs)

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